Gateway of the Mind
by Elexies
Summary: A scientist for Sector 7 finds her mind mysteriously linked with Megatron's and at the receiving end of some mischievous foul play from the Allspark. Torn between finally feeling alive and as though she belongs, and a sense of responsibility for humankind, Megatron delights in making her choices all the more difficult. Rewrite of the original. [MegOC] [BarricadeMikaela] [StarOC]
1. Chapter 1

_Hey! I know guys, I'm terrible at updating and all that noise :( I've kind of gotten back on a Transformers kick though and I figured I've been wanting to update Gateway of the Mind anyway, so here it's going to be! (Along with this one and possibly another I might touch on, I've got a slight set of characters and plot in mind, but we'll see, maybe you'll get to see me more.) I'm about two weeks out from finishing graduate school, so we'll see what's ahead :O _

_I hope you all enjoy this update. Constructive criticism is welcome, and reviews are such a blessing!_

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Constance's world revolved around NBE-1. From her shy teens through her not-so-wild twenties, and now on the verge of her twenty-seventh birthday, when she'd _sworn _for all that was holy she would damn well be married with at least one child on the way, she still centered her entire world around him. Instead of the luxurious beach house she'd dreamed of as a girl, she lived in frosty hangars and often slept in a sleeping bag, be it on chilled scaffolding or on the hard floor of the computer room. Instead of gazing dreamily into the eyes of her husband, she stared perplexed into the dark optics of a mechanical alien life form. And instead of chasing after rambunctious children, she chased after unformatted and un-decrypted computer codes in hopes of discovering whatever mysteries lay within the recesses of the alien mind.

She pursed her lips and then blew out a puff of foggy air, her bangs fluttering over her glasses. Her computer screen, open in her lap, presented a mass of alien symbols and numerals, once a huge mess of noise and nonsense, now becoming a tamed creature. Like the pieces of a thousand different puzzles thrown together into a pile, she'd organized them and begun to situate them together proper, and in the depths of her mind, she knew. It was almost done.

This wasn't what she'd even once imagined herself doing at twenty-seven. Of course, who _really _saw themselves working for a secret sector of the military on a frozen mechanical alien? Not something advertised during the job fairs in elementary school. Of course, none of the jobs back in elementary school interested her anyway. She didn't want to be a doctor or a lawyer or a newsperson or any of the nifty things other children flocked to at the time.

She'd liked puzzles. Word puzzles, picture puzzles, kinetic puzzles, any kind of puzzles, though her absolute _favorites _were the number puzzles. Not a lot of jobs advertised for unpuzzling puzzles though. And she lacked the social skills for much else. It'd been ultimately fortuitous Sector 7 had taken an interest in _her _interests and offered to put her specific pursuits to work on top secret things, all at the cost of no longer having a social life. For the everyday person, the loss friends and family and freedom to do as you pleased could very well have been deemed a great sacrifice.

But for someone who didn't have much of that to begin with?

She had her family who, good people though they were, didn't know what to do with a child like her, were unprepared for her disordered quirks. She had a friend or two, if they could be called that, people she spoke to on occasion. She had her therapist, who'd been working since she was seven to teach her how to recognize subtle facial cues so she could tell when someone felt happy or sad or if they were bored of the monologue she would deliver about the fascinating aspects of puzzles or whatever thing captured her obsessed interest. Not much of a social life though. She'd been almost relieved when at fifteen the government had veritably paid her parents to take her off their hands and she'd spent the next twelve years fed, clothed, and sheltered by the government. Besides her twice a week sessions with Dr. Harding, she had all the time in the world to lose herself to the mind of a machine.

Maybe it's why she liked NBE-1 so much. Her life revolved around him, and that was okay for once. Wasn't it?

She shook her head to him, frowning into his optics.

"It's not," she said to him. He didn't respond. Not unusual.

They were alone in the hangar. Nighttime drew near and only the occasional security guard paroled these parts of the base. NBE-1 had been on ice longer than she'd been alive, and were the system to ever falter or go out, back up generators would keep him in check. Sector 7, ever confident in themselves, thought they had nothing to worry about. She couldn't help but agree. Even if she possessed some logical reason or rationalization to argue that more people were needed around the clock, she wouldn't have. Without much of a life she had the freedom to work endless hours, well into shifts when she was plenty alone. She almost preferred to be alone. Almost. She'd made an occasional friend here, people who were accommodating of her behaviors and patient as she learned how to interact proper. Jim was nice, and there was Lucille who experimented with the radiation from the Cube.

Constance blew out another weary sigh. She'd meant to go out tonight but, well, this puzzle demanded her attention. Her therapist would frown, which mean she was upset or disappointed or sad. They'd agreed this job would be a good use of her talents, so long as she didn't let her obsessive tendencies get the better of her. This was— she looked over her shoulder and checked the clock, making a 'tch' noise with her tongue against her teeth in disapproval— going on the third day without much of a break she'd been working on him. Dr. Harding would not approve.

Constance couldn't stop though. Something _felt_ close. Different. Maybe it was some strange, electrical current in the air. It compelled her to work on, compelled her to crack the codes. Besides, on tonight of all nights, her birthday, didn't it make sense for the gateway of the mysteries of this creature to open up to her?

She'd cracked a few small things here or there in her more than ten years of working on NBE-1. Codes and encryptions she'd found and broken open like a geode, the discoveries leading to the implementation of elevated security systems for the United States and advanced communication for the military and civilian alike as it was put to use in telephones and web based interfacing. It was all well and good, but not her main goal. Her main goal was to break entirely into NBE-1's highly protected mainframe and plunder all the information she could from his cranium. Oh, the things they could learn from this advanced creature.

Not at the risk of her entire life though, Dr. Harding would chastise.

Constance pursed her lips again, glancing to NBE-1. He stared back, face contorted into a vicious snarl. It had taken Constance until age twenty to realize it meant he was most likely angry. She would be too, she supposed. Landing in the Antarctic and freezing, being discovered and kept perpetually on ice, being experimented upon and reverse engineered from. She'd be pretty grouchy. Nonetheless, she was wasting her life away on him, and her birthday too, thank you very much.

"I'm just saying," she said, louder than she meant to, and checked her volume, lowering her voice. Another quirk Dr. Harding had spent years trying to bring into the realm of "normal limits" as it was called. Constance worked hard at mindfulness every day. "It _is _my birthday. And the girls were going to take me to a strip club. I've never been to one of those. I was pretty excited. And you should be excited for me too. It's my birthday after all. You kind of owe me a present. You skipped out on my last eleven. And you're sort of sucking up a lot of my time." She adding an inflection to her voice that almost sounded chastising, and a hint of a proud smile touched her lips. "I was supposed to be out looking for a husband. And living on a beach. Not…in here."

The cooling system kicked on noiselessly, only evidenced by an increased chill and the scaffolding she sat upon rocked forward an inch toward NBE-1's glower. She pulled her coat tighter around herself, glad for the warm clothes and thermal underwear she wore underneath. Imagine, outside in the balmy Nevada night it was probably still in the seventies. Yet here she was. Decoding, decoding, decoding, decoding. Yet something was close. Something was active. Whatever it was, she couldn't say for sure.

Even still, she worked onward, her fingers tapping a rapid cadence on the keys of her computer, breaking down the codes and alien symbols into an ordered blanket of green on black. When she was twenty she'd discovered sitting this close to his processor gave her a greater chance at connecting with the foreign signal NBE-1 projected like an unconscious alien SOS. With it, she'd passed his first two walls of security code. With those walls broken down, so much had been discovered and produced.

What was behind the third? Perhaps NBE-1 himself? Would she be able to finally communicate with that which she'd centered her life around? Her mind worked diligently, breaking down and through the different numerals and symbols lining her screen. The foreign glyphs, once so confusing to her, now read like English in her brain. She'd though once of telling Sector 7 she'd learned the foreign language of NBE-1's hard drive, but it would result in too many questions. The fact remained she understood, but she didn't know how she understood, nor could she produce it of her own accord. She'd tried on multiple occasions. Better the extent of her knowledge was kept a secret so she could do her job, and not have her own cranium broken into and checked by doctors.

She shuddered. Eugh. Doctors.

"Look mister," she mumbled, glancing at NBE-1 and pulling her face into an exaggerated scowl. "You owe me. You owe me this. I was going to go out tonight and try to have fun. I was going to make friends. I'm supposed to have a lot of different things going for me right now besides _you _so give me this…"

The codes wound down and down, the mess that had occupied her computer screen for years now becoming orderly, puzzle pieces coming together to form a proper picture. Suddenly, with a few strokes of a key, they clicked. Everything snapped to where it belonged. She waited for trumpets, for fanfare, for some vibrant declaration of her success, but like her previous times breaking past the security of NBE-1's hard drive, nothing declared her success to the world. _Unlike _her previous times breaking past his security, _nothing _happened. Previously, information had opened up before her, a database of knowledge and specs on technology and even hints to other worlds. The knowledge offered itself like some wanton princess rescued from a tower, and Constance had plundered it shamelessly.

This time, nothing. Her screen sat before her, a well-organized series of alien puzzle pieces, and nothing else, then suddenly, nothing at all. The screen blipped out to red, then black.

"Hey!" she shouted, eyes widening. "_Hey_!"

She smacked the side of her computer screen, giving it a shake, feeling a spark of sincere _rage _within her, something she'd never felt before. Usually she existed in a state of moderate coolness, unfazed by most anything. Not that she didn't have emotions, she just didn't get riled up with ease. This though. This nonsense, this garbage, this _bullshit_. This just wasn't _fair_!

She whipped her head up, glaring to the optics before her, then yelped in surprised. The optics, once black and lifeless as the rest of the form before her, blazed red. Caught in the glowing fury heating her body, the same puzzle that snapped into place on the computer suddenly snapped in her brain, a series of red and cream colors linked together inseparably like the click of a key to a lock. They synced, glowing and intermingling together in intimate twists and turns, braiding and coiling and curling and sweeping between each other, reds and creams fighting for some overwhelming dominance of the other, then suddenly—

She realized she was falling too late, having somehow pushed herself up and back in a frightened leap. She made a noise of complaint in the back of her throat, some garbled mixture of a scream and protesting whine, and then she slammed to the hangar floor. The air knocked out of her in a whoosh, and her head smashed against concrete, her world blacking out.

* * *

**Wake up, female. **_**Wake up**_**. **

Constance felt herself groan before she heard it, felt her throat constrict and the vibration of the noise rise up from her chest and to her parted lips. A warm, constant hum teased through her skull like fingers through her hair, gripping harder than necessary, almost pulling, but the stroke demanded attention. The words came again, masculine with a mechanical hint, almost as though she heard the words through a computer's speakers rather than from the mouth of the owner.

**Wake up, female. I demand it. Open your eyes.**

"Constance! Constance wake up!"

Her brows knit at the second voice, less like something from a machine, and further away than the first voice. The words floated fuzzily to her, sounding distant, but the grip on her arms jostled her into a begrudging wakefulness and the frantic tone washed closer to her. She hadn't slept in almost three days save a spare ten-minute nap every few hours. The rest felt good. To hell with being snatched back into a _freezing _reality. They shouldn't be manhandling her anyway, she thought. She could have a broken neck. Jerking her around would exacerbate the problem.

She opened her eyes, the world slipping into too sharp of focus with a skull splitting speed. She blinked a few times, trying to defocus to something less intense, but instead colors stood out vibrant like splashes of hot paint on a black, cold wall. Her mouth tasted of electricity and her body thrummed and tingled. Above her, one of the technicians leaned over her, his face hot with emotions she couldn't read. Jim. A nice enough man who had dedicated his career to monitoring NBE-1's external temperature. She knew he liked cartoons from the 80's and baseball. She took his features in one at a time, the wide and wild brown eyes, the raised brows, the downturned mouth, the tenseness of his jaw and shoulders. Fear?

"Jim," she mumbled. "Hello."

"Constance! Shit! You scared me! Are you okay?"

He eased her up into a sit. Her back ached and protested the motion, but she ignored it, reaching up and rubbing the side of her face. Her glasses were askew and she righted them, pouting when they refused to sit correctly on her face. Others employees milled around them, but not many, their concerns a murmur in the back of her head against Jim's questions and the masculine hum in her mind. It must still be early in the morning. Most people generally started arriving around five. She made a noise in her throat and Jim's features shifted into something softer and more at ease, a smile creeping across his face. She tried to match it, but the effort felt futile.

"I called some medics," Jim said, his voice higher in tone than she was used to. She'd never really paid attention to what concern did to someone's pitch before. "They'll be here in a moment, if you just want to wait a little bit, before moving too much."

"I've been moved enough now that if something's wrong, we'll know by now," she said. A series of emotions flashed across Jim's face. She missed most of them. Awkwardly, he rubbed at the back of his neck. Unsure what he was feeling, Constance felt a nip of awkwardness as well, and looked down at her lap. Something like dark amusement burnt in the depths of her brain, some internal part she'd never known before, but she tucked it aside. "Help me into a stand." It was more a statement than a request, but Jim hopped on it, jumping to his feet and hooking an arm carefully around her tender backside.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I think something alarmed me last night," she replied, walking on rubbery legs and leaning most of her weight into Jim. He didn't protest, instead guiding her up a ramp and out of the hangar and into a hallway. A window along the wall looked into the lab. From her angle she could see the coworkers that once stood around them now idling to work, no doubt talking about her. She frowned, pushing down how uneasy the idea made her. She didn't want to be the source of any of their attention. She shuddered violently, the force of it startling both her and Jim. It was much warmer in the hallway, but still a chill overwhelmed her body and she shivered, leaning heavier into the man at her side, curling into the warmth of him as well. He blinked down at her, his face twisted up slightly.

"Are you okay?"

"Just cold."

"Maybe the medics should take a look at you after all," Jim offered. She shook her head, looking over her shoulder back into the hangar again. NBE-1 stood, immobile and glaring as ever. His optics were dark. She could've sworn they were red. Hadn't they flashed red last night?

"Constance?"

She turned to Jim, contemplating his face.

"You're concerned?" she asked. He blinked, and then laughed unsurely.

"Y-yeah, of course I am," he said. "I mean, shit, I come into work and find you passed out on the floor. Did you _fall_? You probably _fell_."

**This vermin's grasp of the human language is **_**astounding**_**.**

She shook the thought away, startled not that it came at all, but that it came in the same, male, computerized voice as before. The voice that had insisted she get up. A voice she was quite certain she'd never heard before, so why would she make it up? Why would she think in it? Thoughts that weren't her own?

"I mean, dear God Constance," Jim continued. "It's amazing you're not dead! What happened last night?"

"I broke the security wall, the third one," she replied, looking down. "And I guess I was startled, I guess…" She turned once more, frowning helplessly. What did she guess? What had happened? She tried to recount the events, piecing them together like… puzzles. That was right. She'd broken through the security, her computer had fried itself, she'd looked at NBE-1, and then the optics had been red, and then something had…

**Synchronized. **

She whipped around entirely, staring at NBE-1. The optics remained dark and distant, but there was something behind them, something she could sense more than see. They were looking back at her somehow.

"I don't understand," she mumbled.

**It is a mystery to me as well, female. You invaded my mainframe and **_**somehow **_**managed to link our minds together. **

No, no, no. That was impossible. She shook her head, lips twitching into a tiny smile. She refused to believe something like that. She was imagining this. She was tired. Something like that didn't happen. Because if it did… Well. She didn't know really. What if it did? Wasn't this what she'd wanted? To communicate with NBE-1? To see all he had to offer and plunge into the depths of her favorite quandary?

"Don't understand what?" Jim asked, touching her shoulder. She turned to look at him, opening her mouth, and then snapped it closed with a click of her teeth. He would think her _psychotic._ She knew her oddities were overlooked by most of her coworkers, but claiming that she'd mentally connected herself to NBE-1 was a guaranteed way to look like an absolute nut job. She was barely avoiding a checkup with doctors, last thing she needed was to be forced to sit down where they could poke and prod at her curiously.

"Understand what?" she said, voice cracking.

"Understand what?" Jim asked again, his brows drawing together and lips downturned. Confusion! She recognized that, she was sure she did.

**Miraculously astute, female. Now return your attention where it is due. **

_You aren't supposed to be in my head! _She replied sharply, the tone of her thoughts loud and alarmed. _You need to get out. Shoo. I'll load up the computer and this communication can take place the way it's supposed to, through_ that._ I-I turned you on so you owe me!_

**Owe you? **The voice chuckled, a surprisingly masculine and velvet sound, and his amusement washed over her like rich liquor, her limbs warming. **Naïve, little insect. I have been **_**activated **_**and **_**aware**_** for centuries now. It's merely this frozen prison****in which I'm kept that stops me from **_**decimating **_**all of you disgusting, putrid creatures. **

If bloodlust had a taste, she would liken it to whiskey. It burned something fierce in her gut, but lit her up with vigor she'd never known. Emotions not her own swirled through her consciousness, and visions and dreams not of her making filled her mind's eye, fantasies of the great mechanical creature breaking free and tearing apart the hangar, dissecting humans he caught on a whim with precise and sharp claws, laying waste to the world above and worlds beyond. Memories of mechanical carnage flooded her, foreign but still somehow alarming, something that wasn't her recognizing the depravity of what she saw.

Well…shit.

Constance blinked, her jaw slack and mouth hanging slightly agape. She shut her mouth again, turning and peering up at Jim. None of that sounded good. Frankly, it couldn't make sense. Because after all, NBE-1 wasn't supposed to be active and he wasn't supposed to be so murderously unhappy and he, he…this just wasn't supposed to be happening at all!

"Constance, is everything okay?"

"I think I should get home," she said.

**Home? No, woman, you will immediately free me from this unbefitting prison and I will reward you with a painless death in return!**

_No. No. Nope. Until I can think this through more, you are a psychotic hallucination, a breakdown due to lack of sleep_, she rationalized. _Hush._

"Are you absolutely sure you don't want to see a doctor?" Jim asked, and it was a struggle to focus on his words against the sudden righteous fury that coursed from her head down her spine, tingling in her extremities.

"Uhm-hm," she hummed, leaning away from Jim to stand on her own, reaching up to push her hair back from her face. Her hands shook, but she hid them by slipping them into her coat pockets, snuggling into the warmth. "I am sure. I will take some aspirin and if I don't feel well—"

"Give me a call," Jim said, scrambling into his pocket and pulling out a pen and receipt from what looked like a gas station. He wrote his number on the back of it then offered it to her. She stared at it a long moment, long enough he grew uncomfortable, before she realized what she should do. She accepted the paper, clearing her throat.

"I will. Later." She glanced toward NBE-1, and then moved past Jim, the hum in her mind increasing and a blistering wrath grinding in the deep part of her brain.

_Stop it hallucination. _

**Female, you will turn around immediately and release me!**

_I'm going to go home and take an aspirin and a nap. Then you'll be quiet. _


	2. Chapter 2

_Thank you for the reviews =) I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. There may be a slight break between this chapter and the next. I'm graduating this Saturday and I'll be moving back to Florida, so a lot of my spare time is being taken up with packing or spending my last few moments with close friends :O But, I will hopefully return soon! Please read and review!_

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He wouldn't be quiet. Not that he spoke constantly, but the continual low thrum of his company in her mind demanded her attention, like a person looming over her, their domineering glower eating away at her. Sometimes, it felt almost like a physical presence, like tugging along her scalp or claws beneath her skin. Not to mention the unending chill that coursed through her veins like liquid ice.

She sat in a hot shower, grumbling to herself, her knees pulled against her chest and eyes squeezed closed. She'd tried taking a nap, but sleep was out of the option it seemed, and she was beginning to doubt even a handful of aspirin and bottle of wine would dismiss this intruder. Suffice to say the two aspirins she'd already indulged herself in wouldn't silence the perpetual visitor in her brain. Oh Lord. Visitor in her brain. She really was starting to sound like she had a problem. She groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose and sliding back along the curved side of the tub.

"You're agony," she said. "Pure agony, NBE-1."

**I readily return your sentiments, female. **

"Stop calling me that," she murmured. Female this, woman that. And she though _she _had bad social skills. Well, NBE-1 could certainly give her a run for her money. His irritation flickered like bird wings in her chest, uncomfortable but fleeting, immediately replaced with something luxurious. Her cheeks flushed, the woman ducking her head and wrapping her arms around it in a weak attempt at avoiding the sensation that sprung from within.

**Woman, your pathetic attempts to ignore me have long since ceased to be amusing. Return to the hangar and we can stop this nonsensical game. I would be happy to **_**alleviate **_**your discomfort.**

The voice turned into a croon, like a warm mouth running from her jaw to her ear. She smacked her forehead with a wet _slap_ and shook her head furiously.

"Stop that!" she snapped. She furiously imagined something ridiculous, her hands flailing before her and batting NBE-1 away from her, and some cartoonish miffed expression upon his fearsome face. His presence in her mind turned from irritated to amused, a sensation that reminded her of the first breath of spring air. She soaked up the moment of it, rubbing her forehead. "This isn't going to work. I'm _not _going back to the hangar! Not like this, that's for sure. I just need to figure out a way to get you out of my head, and by the way, you might want to consider that too! Neither of us have _any _idea the ramifications of this sort of nonsense, and, and, _why am I talking to you_?" She threw her head back, both hands gripping her hair.

The whole thing was madness. Nothing made sense! From the moment she'd fallen from the scaffold, reality ceased to be. Maybe she wasn't even in reality anymore and that was the problem. She peeked her eyes open, staring at the faucet across from her, the woman huddled back against the porcelain edge of the tub. She'd returned to her small apartment immediately, not too far out from her job site. It was a modest living space, if only because she couldn't think of anything to really decorate it with or a theme to follow. She supposed if there _were _a theme, it was chaos and disorder. She pushed some wet hair behind an ear, worrying at her lower lip, trying to think through what to do next.

She'd debated with NBE-1 the entire way to her home, and then from there made a fair attempt at sleep, but the soreness at the back of her head and perpetual chill in her body and the constant feeling someone was staring at her put all thoughts of rest out of her mind. She'd instead gone to the bathroom and attempted to check her head for any damage, remembering just how far she'd fallen the night before and in all fairness she should be dead. All that remained as evidence for the accident though was some crusted blood in the back of her hair and a bump. It didn't make sense. Something like that probably should've broken a few bones if not outright splattered her skull.

It all eventually culminated in a frantic desire for something normal, which led to the hot shower. It soothed the chill temporarily, but the debates with NBE-1 started anew the moment a sense of normalcy soothed her with its predictable blandness. Gosh, for a second there, she'd almost felt like everything would be okay. Thank goodness for the strange voice in her head putting an immediate stop to _that _nonsense.

**Sarcasm is hardly befitting a female of **_**any **_**species.**

"Just shut up," she snipped, touching at the back of her head delicately. The soreness from a few hours ago had faded into a shy tenderness and no more. She supposed the aspirin was working. Her back no longer ached so severely either. On tender foot, Constance pushed into a stand, her fingers running along the back of her neck, testing for any spots that might protest prodding. From her neck she looked to her left shoulder and down her arm, testing the skin and searching for bruises. She was pale from too much time inside, but the copper tone of her hair helped turn it from looking unhealthy to possibly natural. She checked the bones of her arm down to her hand, and then the other arm, testing for any sensitive points. Nothing ached. From her arms she reached behind, pressing her palms against her back, and ran it down the length.

A burn over her upper back objected all the way to her waist, and then eased the further down she went. Nothing could be broken though, or else surely she wouldn't be walking. Constance turned the hot water off, reaching blindly from the shower and snatching up a brown towel, wrapping it around herself. The bathroom billowed with white steam, the mirror fogged over to reveal nothing. Stepping like a woman on eggshells, she crept out of the shower and to the mirror, wiping it enough to reveal a pale face with wide, dark eyes.

An image came to her mind, oil in snow, leaking away from damaged ports and limbs, freezing in depths beneath arctic tundra. It felt like a memory, though how she could tell, she didn't know. It played in her mind a few times over, the oil blacker and blacker each time, and then her face swam into her own vision, the paleness of her features against the copper of her hair and the black of her eyes overly vivid like a photo overexposed. She blinked a few times, shaking her head.

"Close your eyes," she said, closing hers and pressing her wet palms against her face.

_**Close **_**my eyes? Woman, I cannot even begin to count the ways that order is preposterous. **

"I don't care. I don't want you to look at me."

**I've seen more than enough of you. **

Images flooded her mind, millions upon millions flashing through her head from when she first sat before NBE-1's face as a young woman to last night when she plummeted from the scaffold. Each image came with a slew of emotions, each intense and burning with some level of malevolence. She shook her head harder, her palms pressing almost painfully against her face now.

"So you've been watching me this whole time? How can you have been on? We never even got readings from you that would indicate—"

**Human technology is grossly underdeveloped, even for the age of your species. And you know as well as I do the only reason your kind has advanced as far as it has is because of **_**me**_**. **

Constance peeked from between her fingers, lips turned down.

"I need to check for bruises and I don't want you to see. Can't you just not be in my head for a second?"

**If only we could afford such a luxury. **The sneer in his voice straightened her back and she glowered at the fogged mirror, slamming her palms onto the counter.

"Look! I'm not even so sure you're real yet! You keep this up a-a-and I'll…I'll…"

**What will you do, fleshling? Please, do tell**.

He chuckled again, and a sensation of hands on her shoulders mocked her with their gentility. Constance jerked from the touch that most likely just existed within her head and whipped around, glaring at the closet door, half expecting someone to be behind her, the physical manifestation of the very thing that occupied her thoughts. How fitting that she'd let NBE-1 be the center of her world for so long, and now she just wanted him out of her head, if only for a moment.

"I'll go to a _psychiatrist_!" she threatened. He laughed, but she didn't let his derision take away her bravado. "I will! And they'll prescribe me some medication to shut you up!"

**That's all assuming that I'm a figment of your fractured mainframe, woman. But sadly for the both of us, I am not. I'm here, in you're weak little mind. Somehow you have connected us, and the last thing you want to do is go telling **_**anyone **_**that, do you? **

She pursed her lips, at a loss. The voice in her head made a compelling argument. Real or not, she couldn't go telling a doctor. Her condition presented her with enough day-to-day obstacles, she didn't want to add another diagnosis to the list. She rubbed her forehead, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath to sooth the rattling of her nerves. Okay. So real or not real, she was stuck with this.

"Is there anyway you can prove you're real, that you're not a hallucination?"

**Why should I? Perhaps your madness amuses me, perhaps I would rather see you fall to pieces, into a wasted shell of a fleshling, until you can no longer bare the burden of your insanity and you take your own life. **

She narrowed her eyes, jaw tightening. "Well something you haven't considered is that we're _connected_. I've been _freezing _since we synchronized and that's probably from the link we share. So it's safe to assume that this is more than just we can see and hear each other's thoughts." She took a deep breath, and then lifted her chin defiantly. "So if I get hurt, who knows what happens to you?"

He scoffed, but didn't respond. She blew out a thin stream of air, and her shoulders slumped. Her back was starting to ache again, a dull pressure and nothing more, but the presence of it along with the returning chill exhausted her. She pressed the heel of her hand against an eye, rubbing.

**This predicament can be easily alleviated by you returning to the hangar and unfreezing me. It will happen eventually, better you stop wasting valuable time. **

"No! Are you out of your mind?" she snapped, eyes widening. "I'm not going to just release you! You want to destroy the world for goodness sake!" She ground her teeth, huffing. "Look, until we figure out what's going, we're stuck like this. So maybe it wouldn't hurt if we learned how to get along." She felt his sneer, his disdain, and sighed. "Or at least tolerate each other."

A long silence stretched between the two of them, uncomfortable and tense, and she held her breath, closing her eyes.

**Agreed. Until we can decipher a way to reverse this conundrum, pleasantries can be feigned. **

"Feigned. Great, thanks," she mumbled, shaking her head. "Now could you please just, not pay attention to me for a little bit? If you can see, then you can look somewhere else for a period of time. What's going on in the hangar?"

**The usual. Filthy vermin are scattering about, doing tests and monitoring my status. Occasionally there is talk of you. **

"Mmm," she replied noncommittally, pushing the idea away firmly. She did _not _want to think about that. With him distracted and relaying flippant details to her, she flicked the switch to begin defogging the bathroom, wiping down the mirror. More of her came to view and she turned around, lowering the towel enough it draped near her buttocks. She peeked over her shoulder at her reflection. Her backside was suspiciously devoid of much bruising. Some purpling and yellow bursts of color painted her upper back near her shoulders and the nape of her neck, where she imagined her body had taken the brunt of her fall, but excluding those, her skin was impeccably free of blemish. She turned more to the mirror, contemplating the front of her now, searching for any other signs of bruising. Nothing called for her attention, and a scientific intrigue captured her attention. Her eyes roved her figure like an artist confronted for the first time with a nude model.

She glanced over her face, aware of the chiaroscuro of inky black eyes and pale skin, highlighted by the coppery hair, and instead went immediately to the feminine protrusion of her collarbones, down to the modest swell of her breasts. Her hands dropped the towel, rising and settling over her breasts for a moment, before wandering down to the pale expanse of her stomach where a slight paunch of fat rested. Her gaze drifted to the delicate curve of her hips and down to thighs.

What was she doing? She blinked, then frowned and shook her head some. Looking for bruising. Right. No bruising anywhere else.

Curious.

She pursed her lips and frowned at herself in the mirror, then made an exaggerated confused expression in the mirror. She drew her eyebrows heavily together and tilted her head, setting her hands on her hips.

_Curious_.

**What are you doing female?**

"Oh my God! I said don't look!" she shrieked, whipping around from the mirror and covering her face. NBE-1 chuckled and her face heated more. She tried to ignore how his amusement continued to feel like velvet and liquor. She stamped her foot. "I told you not to look! You said you wouldn't!"

**I said no such thing, woman—**

"Constance. My name is _Constance_."

**If we are to go by our given designations, you will refer to me as Lord Megatron. **

"L-lord?" she laughed, shaking her head. "I won't be _lording_ anyone."

**Very soon, your entire race will bow and die before me alike. It would be in your best interest to ingratiate yourself to me now. **

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," she grumbled, shaking her head. "I hate to break it to you, but perhaps you didn't notice you're _frozen _in a _hangar _far, far, far, underground where no one will ever find you. You're not a threat to anyone."

His anger sparked, but quelled fast enough to be tinged with bitter resignation. She instantly felt guilty, glancing to the side at the bathroom floor. She picked up the towel she'd dropped, wrapping it around her, twisting the edge of it between her fingers. It certainly wasn't his intention to be captured by the humans, and had his hatred for them started before or after? Did it matter? The visions he'd shone her of the carnage of another planet, perhaps the one he was from, indicated well enough he had a taste for violence. It was for everyone's safety he was locked up.

She couldn't fathom being trapped like that though, for decades upon decades.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "That was rude."

**Your apologies are not needed, fleshling. I will be free soon enough. **

"Well, okay, if not for that, then I'm sorry I was the first to break our feigned pleasantries rule."

He chuckled, the warm and lazy sensation of his pleasure curling like smoke up within her. It was temperamental, could be quickly extinguished and traded for something else, but it was there.

**Your apology has been noted. **

"Will you forgive me?" she asked, the question rolling easily and practiced off her tongue. Dr. Harding had started her on that quickly enough. Constance knew she had a tendency to miss people's hurt, it wasn't uncommon for her to appear calloused to someone's feelings without even realizing it. Forgiveness was something introduced within her family early on. She said what she'd done to hurt the person, apologized, and asked for forgiveness. The person accepted, and it helped to put water beneath the bridge. NBE-1's— _Megatron's_— startled silence didn't go unnoticed by her, and she blinked, showing him as much in her mind, the first time she'd been taught to ask for forgiveness, how it had played out in her family and even in her day to day life. His amusement returned, though derisively.

**I forgive you, **_**Constance**_**.**

She released some air she hadn't realize she was holding, and nodded, drawing herself up into a proper stand.

"Thank you. Feigned pleasantries take two…"

She left the bathroom, wandering through her bland apartment to her bedroom, passing the hall that led to her living room on the way. The only attempt at decorations she had were the puzzles she'd framed, multitudes of them lining the walls, and new ones were strewn about on the living room's hard floor and a large coffee table. Distracted as they'd been, and exhausted as she'd been, upon entry they'd passed right through, but now she felt his curiosity and she paused, surveying the mass of puzzles. He took in all that she saw, at least ten different puzzles scattered about, and some she'd even managed to mix together against the puzzle's original intent. She first felt his surprise, his bemusement, and finally wicked humor bubbled within him.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

**It figures as much I would get trapped in the mind of a mad woman.**

"Hey!"


End file.
